I went on to classmates.com tonight and saw my high school yearbook. I was amazed at how young I looked. I remembered how young I was then, how full of dreams. I wanted to go to film school. I had a huge crush on a girl in my English class. I wanted to go to school at Berkeley or San Francisco and wear an army jacket and a backpack slung over one shoulder. I wanted to live in a dorm and smoke clove cigarettes. The possibilities for my future seemed ripe and endless.
How did I end up here? Here is not a bad place, per se, but it is here. It wasn't what Erin wanted twenty years ago. Had I not been LDS, I am quite sure I would have gone to Sac State (Erin had terrible grades and would never have been admitted to a UC). I would have been a photographer for one of those underground newspapers and I probably would have been in a gay relationship.
It is fun to imagine the what-if of my life. In a weird way, I am kind of nostalgic for the life I didn't have.
However, had I not been LDS, I know I would not have had kids. As a gay teen twenty years ago, having a family was out of the question. Also, I know I would have overdosed or otherwise suicided. I was one depressed kid; being gay was only a chunk of the sadness. Drugs were a huge temptation for me--I never succumbed, but I knew I could make the sadness go away, even temporarily. As an LDS teenager, I was afraid to commit suicide because I was certain God would condemn the hell out of me (literally).
Being LDS allowed me to live. The grace began: At first, I merely existed, floating at LDS schools. Then I chose majors, possible lives that interested me. I selected one major that helped me to get my emotional crap together. Getting my crap together allowed me to get married. Then I had a career that further helped me to get my crap together. With that crap together, I felt confident enough to have kids. Now I drive an SUV, have wrinkles and belly fat, and do not smoke clove cigarettes, not even a little bit.
So, being LDS saved my life. Being LDS made me the Erin I am today. I may not be who I dreamed I would be, but I am me and I am here. And that is happy.
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5 comments:
Very nice post.
There are some wierd times when I feel like I'm a male version of you. Would that younger self have even listened to the older you? And where did the years go? It really is amazing how far we have come in the intervening years; how much we have changed into someone we couldn't even have imagined back then.
Sort of gives hope for the next 20 years.
Hi Dean, thanks for stopping by this blog. I am flattered by your comment!
Hi Frank, good to hear from you again! You posed a good question--would the younger version of me have listened to the older me? Knowing me, I doubt it--I think I had the egocentrism of youth, believing that no one, not even Older Me could understand Younger Me.
I never thought of having this type of hope for the next 20 years, but now I will.
Thanks for your thoughts.
So many similarities to me. I also have wondered what my life would have been like without the church. So very different...But also very possible that I wouldn't be here.
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